What are tokenized treasuries?

A tokenized treasury is a blockchain token that represents ownership of a fund or note that holds US Treasury bills, cash or repurchase agreements. The underlying assets stay with traditional custodians, while ownership records and transfers happen on a blockchain. It is one of the largest uses of tokenization so far.

What are tokenized treasury funds?

Most tokenized treasury products are money market style funds whose shares are issued as tokens. The fund manager buys short-term government debt as usual. A transfer agent then records who owns each share on a public blockchain instead of, or alongside, a traditional ledger. Investors usually receive income as additional tokens or a rising token value.

These products are not the same as stablecoins. They pass through returns from the underlying debt and usually limit who can hold them. Our guide to yield-bearing stablecoins covers a related but different design.

What are some tokenized US Treasury products?

Franklin Templeton's Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) is described by the firm as the first US-registered fund to process transactions and record share ownership on a public blockchain. One fund share is represented by one BENJI token, and the fund invests at least 99.5% of its assets in government securities, cash and repurchase agreements.

BlackRock launched the USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, known as BUIDL, on Ethereum in March 2024. It holds cash, Treasury bills and repurchase agreements, aims for a stable $1 per token, and pays income as new tokens monthly. At launch it was open only to qualified investors, with Securitize as transfer agent and BNY Mellon as custodian.

Ondo Finance offers USDY, which its documentation calls a tokenized note secured by US Treasuries, and OUSG, a qualified-access Treasuries token. Each product has its own eligibility rules. See what Ondo Finance is for more.

Access varies widely. Many products, such as BUIDL at launch, are limited to qualified or institutional investors with high minimums. Others are designed for broader access but still require identity checks. Holding the token also means relying on the issuer, custodian and blockchain working as intended, on top of the risks of the underlying fund.

How big is the tokenized treasury market?

RWA.xyz, a data site that tracks real-world assets on-chain, showed about $14.7 billion in tokenized US Treasury products across 117 products and roughly 86,700 holders when we checked on October 19, 2026. The largest included Circle's USYC, Ondo's USDY, BlackRock's BUIDL and Franklin Templeton's BENJI products. These figures change daily and depend on how the tracker counts products.